


Fighting the dead

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentions of mutilation, Sex, past history of theon/robb and jon/robb alluded too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-12 12:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11736744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Less than twelve hours since I watched s7ep4 and I'm already writing fanfic about it. Theon and Jon have a fumble together at Dragonstone then catch up a little.





	1. Chapter 1

They don’t talk about Robb. How can they? Robb is the big dark sickening ocean between them, as Jon sits up staring into the fire and Theon curls next to him in a pretense of sleep. Robb is the person they both want, achingly, to be there with them, even as they know that if Robb was still here every single thing about both of them would be completely different.

It’s Jon who speaks first, carefully rasping out each word and placing it by the fire, “Did I hurt you?”

There’s a noise from Theon, small and he can’t quite place it. Jon desperately hopes that the next sound he hears won’t be a whimper or a sob or anything broken because he thinks if it is, he might just walk out the room and back to his own quarters. Instead he hears a slight shift and then when Theon speaks it almost sounds like Theon.

“No. No, your grace.”

It takes Jon a while to work out that Theon means him. He blinks, still staring into the fire. “You don’t have to call me that.”

“You’re King in the North, your grace.”

It sounds so wrong, in a voice that’s almost Theon’s. Jon finds himself listening out for the mockery, the sneer, the snort of laughter that would come directly behind Theon Greyjoy ever calling the bastard of Winterfell ‘Your Grace’, but it isn’t there. Nothing but words spoken honestly.

“If I am, your queen doesn’t recognise me.” Jon says, trying not to sound quite as bitter as he feels.

Theon frowns, and for a moment looks confused. His queen, and Jon wonders whether Theon really thinks of Daenerys as his queen, or whether in his mind that place belongs to Yara. Where do Theon’s loyalties lie? It disturbs Jon that he doesn’t know, or rather, he knows a lot about Theon Greyjoy but none of them fit the man currently curled up next to him.

They shouldn’t have done it, he thinks with a dull ache. They shouldn’t have ended up in bed together. Not now, not like this. Not with Theon’s body covered in scars, and Jon’s body returned from the dead, and both of them trying not to see Robb where he isn’t and never will be.

Jon knows what he felt for Robb was never anything more than a one-sided childhood crush. What Theon felt; who knows what Theon felt, or what Theon still feels. But that was Robb, and Winterfell and seems a whole world away. Jon’s _died_ since then and Theon, Theon’s died too. And what had been an angry series of night-time teenage fumbling between two irritated enemies is now something more.

He’d not once looked at the dark space between Theon’s legs, not even with Theon’s hand against his cock and Theon’s mouth trembling at his neck. His hands had rubbed all over Theon’s body, but never there. It was an inky black smear, like the absence of Robb, an absence that was too monstrous to even mention. But Theon trembled, and sighed, and calmed, and seemed to get something out of it.

He wants to hate Theon. He does hate Theon. But he can’t hate the broken man lying next to him. Jon reaches a hand down and gently lays it on Theon’s head. There’s a small shudder from the body beneath him, and then stillness.

“What will you do?” Jon asks.

There’s silence, but it’s the comfortable and slightly busy silence of Theon thinking. “I need to rescue my sister.”

“By yourself?”

“I can’t ask anyone to follow me. Not when I can’t lead them.” And again, words that would have been bitter and self-deprecating from the old Theon are now just statements of fact, in a low rough voice.

Jon strokes Theon’s hair gently, still staring at the fire, and is half-shocked when the voice speaks up again. “What will you do?”

“Mine the dragonglass.” That’s what he’s here for; even while his body twitches to be back in the North, leading his people. “Get it, take it back, fight the army of the Dead. Try not to die.” _Try not to die again_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t quite want to trust Theon with that knowledge.

“You’ll fight the dead?” And Theon moves then, uncurling a little, eyes staring up at Jon. His face looks troubled and so much thinner than Jon remembers. Theon was always big and trying to make himself bigger; big laugh, big smile, big cock, big swagger. Now Theon has shrunk, and Jon can’t quite remember whether the man always used to be shorter than him.

“Yes. Do you believe me?”

“How can you kill the dead?” Jon knows what Theon is thinking – a Kraken saying, stitched on a flag – and then he adds, almost mournfully, “There are a lot of dead.”

“There are. But we can kill them.” Jon wishes he was as sure as he sounds.

Theon pushes himself upright, sitting next to Jon and staring into the flames as well. His hands are ruined; missing fingers, scarred, flayed and torn. He’ll never pull a bowstring again, even wielding a sword will be difficult. Ramsay took away everything that made Theon, his bow, his cock and his smile. But there’s still a man sitting next to Jon with Theon’s face.

“What will you do if you can’t rescue your sister?” Jon asks. He knows he should probably put an arm around Theon, give him some comfort, but he can’t quite bring himself to, not yet. The shameful memory of them both rutting on the floor is still keen in his mind. “Will you lead the Ironborn? Will you serve the Dragon Queen?”

He needs to know loyalties and allegiances, but that isn’t why Jon Snow is asking. Theon isn’t important enough for his allegiance to anyone to count for much, but Jon still wants to know.

“If I can’t rescue my sister, I’ll die. He’ll kill me.” Theon’s face twitches momentarily, then recovers. “If I can’t even die…” his eyes slide sideways to Jon, and for a wild moment Jon thinks he’s going to pledge for the Starks, right there and then, “I shall see if there’s anything else my Queen requires of me.”

He needs someone, Jon realises, with a shot of loathing for the dead Ramsay Bolton. Theon doesn’t trust himself anymore, and existing without a person to lead him is too far out of his comfort zone. He can only be a follower now, if not an actual servant.

“He’s dead.” Jon says, and he’s not sure why he says it. He doesn’t even have to state who he means, he can feel every one of Theon’s muscles stiffen up beside him. “I’m sure you already know, but he died in Winterfell. Sansa. She tied him to a chair and fed him to his own dogs.”

Jon isn’t sure what he’s expecting; gratitude, tears, relief. But he certainly isn’t expecting Theon to look up with a face filled with unspeakable terror and then vomit all over the front of his furs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get a bit more of Theon's reaction down before the next episode comes out, so here's another chapter.

Ramsay is dead. Theon had known it before, on some dim, technical level, in the same way he’d known that winter was coming, or that Dragonscale was real. Somehow it had just been a far off fact that his brain had shied away from. After all, from a boat on the middle of the Southern Seas it hardly matters whether Ramsay is alive or dead.

But now Jon Snow is here, and Jon has seen it, seen his corpse, and all Theon can feel is a hideous tide of terror climbing up inside him. For a significant part of him, Ramsay is still the world he revolves around, his creator and master, and the thought that someone that big, that important, that ever-present, can _die_ sends his mind scuttling in terror. If Ramsay can die, then Theon can be snuffed out in an instant. He can’t make himself believe it.

“They wouldn’t.” He gasps hoarsely, as Jon strips off the ruined furs and bundles them together. “The dogs, they were loyal, they were –“

“They were starving.” Jon’s voice is flat and firm in the darkness of a room lit only by fire.

“He controlled them, he –“

“He starved them and they ate him.”

Ramsay is dead, so monsters can die. If Ramsay is dead, it means that Euron can be killed, and that’s enough to bring Theon back to a semblance of hope, to stop his hand shaking and his face trying to duck down for safety. “He’s dead...”

“We burned the body.” Jon swings the furs outside the door to deal with later. “Tore down his banners and burned them as well. There’s nothing left in Westeros of him, or house Bolton.”

For a moment Theon almost feels ashamed that an enemy that had such a hold over him has been so easily erased from existence. But finally the relief is starting to sink in, the wary knowledge that there is no more Ramsay, or anyone that supports him. “If Ramsay can die, Euron can die.”

“All men can die.” Jon answers, and then adds without thinking, “I should know.”

Theon doesn’t notice the words, he’s staring at the fire still, his jaw clenched. Jon steps over, and then Jon’s arm is around him, a bit hesitant and awkward but definitely there, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

“Yara’s all I have left.” Theon whispers at the fire.

“That isn’t true.” Jon answers, albeit reluctantly. “Sansa is Lady of Winterfell. She remembers.”

A large number of emotions flicker across Theon’s face, and to his own surprise he finds himself settling for a slightly out-of-practice chuckle, “You think I’d be welcome back at Winterfell?”

“Probably not.” Jon admits.

“I’ll not be heading North again.” Theon says, and the words become true as he says them. He’s not made any firm plans about his future, he’s still slightly amazed that he _has_ a future, but he knows if he rescues Yara he’ll head no further north than Pike in his lifetime. The North is cold and pain and sour memories. Here he has a chance.

Jon gives a snort, “You say that. I once thought I’d never leave the wall.”

Theon drops his head sideways to land on Jon’s shoulder, and again the movement is hesitant and awkward but it feels comforting to have Jon so close. And unexpectedly, Jon reciprocates, pulling him closer. “I never thought that.” Theon answers.

“Really?”

“Never. Ned Stark’s bastard son living his days out in obscurity? You’re his son, after all. He’d never have done it.”

He can feel Jon’s discomfort, and wonders what Jon is thinking. Maybe he feels more like his father’s son, now he’s King in the North. Maybe he feels less like it. The words ‘King in the North’ still sit uneasily in Theon’s mind. They’re too familiar, too connected with another face that ghosts around the fire beside them.

“I don’t know what will happen, in the course of this war.” Jon says slowly, and Theon listens because by now he can recognise the voice of a person saying something they feel is important. “But if you end up in the North, Theon Greyjoy, and I’m still King of it, I’ll not have anyone harming you for the things you did.”

Theon can tell it’s more of a gesture than a statement, but he also feels the weight of forgiveness behind it. He wonders if Robb would be generous enough to forgive him that far, and his hand gropes out blindly to grab at Jon’s, “Don’t, don’t say that. It’s more than I deserve, you _know_ that.”

Jon is silent for a moment and then sighs, “Only the gods know what we truly deserve, Theon.”

The corners of Theon’s mouth twitch slightly, “Your gods are a little more forgiving than mine, Jon Snow.”

The name slips out before he’s realised, but for some reason it makes Jon smile, and relax a little more into him. Theon drifts off eventually, rested against Jon’s chest, his broken fingers still clutched at Jon’s hand, while Jon stays awake into the early light, staring into the dying embers of the fire.

**Author's Note:**

> As you can probably tell, this is set in a sort of alternate universe where Theon and Jon have previous history together from their years in Winterfell. I know in 'reality' there's no way either of them would be ready to jump into bed together at this point but I wanted to see it happen. Hopefully some of you want to read it as well :p


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